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When he meets Prince Na Jaemin for the first time, Jeno’s eyes are as bloodshot as a drunkard’s — not from crying, but from his stubborn effort of keeping them open for as long as he can.
Every time he closes his eyes, he sees fresh blood running across his hands.
So he keeps them wide open, as the court advisor gestures for him to kneel in the throne room. In front of him, the king’s throne is empty. At its base, lies the prince. Jeno's head is bowed, but he can hear the lazy sound of a gayageum being played.
The king was otherwise occupied with court business today, the advisor had told Jeno. Today, you will seek the prince’s time. The king has seen far too many boys like you. That is why you’re here, isn't it?
The prince doesn’t sit up as Jeno kneels before him, and minutes pass as he continues plucking at his gayageum. He chooses the notes at random, but together they weave a pretty, if unsettling, melody.
At last, he asks, “What is your name?"
It is a humiliating question, for Jeno’s father had named him the characters for king, and strength. Even as an infant, Jeno had been unassuming, so perhaps it was a final effort to bestow upon him the glorious fate the gods had promised his father.
Well, look at him now. As much a king as he is strong, which is to say, not at all. Seeking asylum at the feet of a prince whose kingdom is only a fraction of Jeno’s home. A prince who, despite this, doesn’t know Jeno’s name, and refuses to even meet his eyes.
Though now, the prince sits up. “I asked for your name, newcomer. Or are you mute?” He raises an eyebrow at the advisor. “Is he mute?”
Before the advisor can answer, Jeno speaks up. “My name is Jeno, your Highness.”
He waits, for the scathing remark to come.
Instead, all the prince says is, “Welcome to Silla,” and just like that, Jeno is dismissed. He would be offended, at the fact that the prince can’t spare any more of his time, but he’s just relieved.
Over the next day, the few conclusions Jeno has drawn about the prince are all proven wrong.
Surprisingly, Jaemin joins the rest of the fosters for meals. He sits at the head of the table, and is served first before the rest of them.
Jeno wonders whether this is a quiet show of cruelty, to show the fosters that they will never be the prince’s equal again, but one of the younger boys tells him otherwise.
“The prince is at the age where he chooses his companions,” Jisung explains, in hushed whispers, “So he joins us for meals. But he doesn’t speak to us.”
“He’s unfriendly, then?”
When Jisung immediately shakes his head, no, it doesn't seem to be fearful. “He’s friendly to us,” he says earnestly, “More friendly than he should be. But he never speaks to us, not directly.”
This proves to be true. Though the meals served are Jaemin’s favourites, he never takes more than he needs, and smiles freely as the fosters dig in.
And the best part about mealtimes, Jeno comes to discover, is dessert, when bowls of figs are brought out for them to share.
Jaemin lights up at this, tossing the figs into the air to split them apart with his teeth. Some days, he juggles them in the air, and to end it off, tosses them to each boy to eat.
The first time he tosses one to Jeno, Jaemin meets his eyes. They’re bright and luminescent in a way so unlike the day before.
Jeno’s eyes catch on his lips, a bright, vivid red. All he can see is fresh blood running across his feet.
Jeno looks away, first.
Every night, Jeno continues to dream of the boy whom he killed, except now he has Jaemin’s eyes. What is your name? He asks Jeno, before he pushes Jeno to the rocks.
And it’s hard, to attend lessons like that, when his nights go sleepless. Especially when Silla’s swordsmaster reminds them firmly that they all have much to achieve before they can be considered honourable men again. I am not a man, Jeno wants to tell him, every time he says this. I am not a man.
It’s far easier to hide away in one of the many rooms in the palace, delaying punishment by the day. At his own palace, Jeno had learnt by trial and error, to make himself unseen and unheard. Here, he manages to avoid everyone from the advisors to the maids, but not the prince.
Jaemin strides into his hideout one day with purpose, nodding loftily when he sees Jeno perched on the window sill. Instinctively, Jeno slips out of the opening, halfway out in escape.
Swift as a snake, Jaemin’s hand catches his wrist. The prince raises one perfectly arched eyebrow, lips pushed into an amused little smile. “I thought I might find you here, Prince Jeno,” he says, in his typical lazy drawl. “You were hiding from the swordsmaster?”
“I don’t see why you’re concerned,” Jeno says, and moves to tug his hand away.
Jaemin only tightens his grip. “I’m not,” he says, his tone warning. Jeno knows he’s pushing the leeway Jaemin has graciously allowed him, but he can’t bring himself to care.
He tugs his hand once more, mumbling, “Let me go,” but Jaemin just shakes his head and nods to the window. Jeno turns to see the swordsmaster leading practice drills outside. Blood rushes to his ears at the foolish mistake he was about to make.
He quietly draws himself back into the room. “Thank you.”
Out of kindness or apathy, Jaemin ignores this. “The swordsmaster told my father,” he says, impatiently. It’s a minute change in the pace of his words, but it is the most ruffled Jeno has seen the prince be. “I overheard him. You are to be punished. Do you understand what this means?”
Of course he understands; but he would rather not. He asks, “Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?”
Jaemin blinks, then steps back. There hangs no sword at his waist, yet Jeno flinches, expecting a reprimand for his lack of compliance or gratitude. Instead, Jaemin appraises him, tilting his head. If Jeno were brave enough to draw the conclusion, he’d say there’s a touch of amusement to the tilt of Jaemin’s lips.
“You will tell them that I excused you from your drills. You will come with me to my lesson, instead,” Jaemin says, at last.
It strikes Jeno that this is the first command he’s given Jeno, in all his time in Silla. If Jeno were more stupid, he would act on the urge to disobey it, but he is sick of being stupid.
He bows his head, and follows Jaemin to his lesson.
But afterwards, Jaemin heads to practise swordfighting, where no one must follow, and Jeno is left aimless.
The Fates must be cruel even as they weave his everyday life, because Jeno's feet lead him to the dry fields outside the palace, just like the one where he had committed murder.
Jeno closes his eyes now, remembering the way the boy had snatched the dice from his hands — the one gift Jeno had truly cherished. He remembers the way he had goaded Jeno into pushing him into the ground, remembers the sickening crack! of the boy’s head against the rocks.
When he opens his eyes once more, it is dusk, and his vomit dries on the ground. This is how Jaemin finds him, as the sun disappears over the horizon.
Jeno waits for the blow to come, verbal or physical. Clearly, though, he still doesn’t know Jaemin well enough.
All Jaemin does is ask, “Why are you here, Prince Jeno? Why are you in Silla?”
His voice is even as it is bright, low and charming in a way that’s uncommon in eleven-year-old boys. From years of eavesdropping on his father’s court, Jeno also hears the entitlement in it. This is a boy who expects his every question, if not his every command, to be answered.
Jeno is weak, and plain, but not simple like his mother was. He does not voice any of these thoughts aloud, instead choosing to say, “I am not a prince anymore, your Highness.”
It comes out sounding fairly accusatory instead of humble, like he’d meant it to be, but about this, he can’t bring himself to care too much. It is cruel of Jaemin to keep rubbing salt in a still freshly-bleeding wound, tearing apart the most minute chances of it healing.
“Fine, then,” Jaemin says, lightly, “I have never cared for airs and graces. I will call you by your name, and you may call me Jaemin, if you wish. So answer me, Jeno, why are you here?”
Because I killed a boy, Jeno wants to say. That is the honest truth. But something about Jaemin infuriates him, in this moment, so he asks a question he thinks Jaemin will not know the answer to.
“Have you ever had anything taken away from you?”
He doesn’t meet Jaemin’s eyes as he says this, choosing instead to look at his feet. The prince’s leather sandals collect dust and gravel in this field. He does not belong here, and he’ll return to his palace any moment now.
Jaemin is silent for a very long time, and as much as Jeno wishes he could triumphantly turn his back to the Prince, he waits to be dismissed, from Jaemin's sight or from Silla.
Instead, Jaemin says, “You know, I think I have.”
Jeno looks up at this, unable to help himself. “What could it possibly be?”
Jaemin smiles, and it is both like and unlike the way he had smiled in the dining hall. It is not as bright or carefree, but it is a mask, just the same. “If you will not give me an honest answer,” Jaemin says, “Then I am not obliged to give you one, either.”
They’re words of a prince, but even when he was one, Jeno never once spoke like that to anyone. He watches as Jaemin turns his back and walks back to the palace, thinking his dismissal must come soon.
It does not. When he returns to the palace that night, a maid tells him to move his belongings upstairs.
“Upstairs?” He asks. “Why, upstairs?”
“To the Prince’s chambers, of course,” she says impatiently. “Now, move.”
Jeno moves, in a daze. Jisung waves as he goes, not jealous but just relieved.
The maid leads him up to the prince’s chamber, and knocks. Jaemin opens the door almost immediately, and leans against the frame with an amused quirk of his lips. And Jeno realises, with a start, that this must be the closest to an honest smile that Jaemin has given him.
"What do you say?" Jaemin asks, pushing his chin up in an impression of haughty noblemen. "Will you be my companion?"
There are many things Jeno could say, in this moment. I am not worthy, or, I am not a toy for you to play with.
Instead, he gives Jaemin what the prince is so clearly trying to coax out of him — a smile. "If that is what you want, then I will."
When Jaemin smiles back, this time, it's blinding, brilliant, beautiful, and real.
Falling in love with him is easy, after that.
The palace is a happier place once he becomes Jaemin's companion, and Jeno would like to think that it goes both ways.
But that comes to an end one night when they're fifteen, and Jaemin comes back from visiting his mother. A minor goddess, people say. Promised to the king for his piety. She despises everyone but her son.
Jaemin goes to visit her once a month, and those are the days Jeno hates the most. He wonders if when they meet, the goddess sucks all the light out of Jaemin, leaving him fragile and pale when he returns.
When they're fifteen, Jaemin returns on one of those nights looking more broken than ever. For the first time, he crawls into bed beside Jeno, and tells him what happened during their meeting.
"She has a prophecy," he says. His words are monotonous, and Jeno hates it, but at least Jaemin’s speaking.
"The one about you becoming our greatest warrior?"
“No,” Jaemin says, and uncharacteristically, his voice breaks. “No, Jeno. She’s raised me for slaughter. I’m going to become the greatest warrior, and then, I’m going to die.”
For the first time, Jaemin begins to cry, and all Jeno can do is to hold him until he falls asleep from the exhaustion.
In the morning, Jaemin is gone, and Jeno isn’t even a little bit surprised.
It doesn’t take Jeno long to catch up to Jaemin.
After the king had struck him across the face for being so bold as to ask for Jaemin’s whereabouts, Jeno had turned to the treasurer. In a fitful rage that Jeno never once threw as a prince, he asks for enough gold to search the Three Kingdoms.
Then he leaves the one place he has known peace in, and searches.
Jaemin is easy to find, and Jeno likes to think that it’s because he wanted to be found. All he says when Jeno catches up to him, on the mountain path, is, “We only have a little further to go, come on.”
The centaur is said to have trained the greatest heroes of their land. Perhaps that is why he is so forgiving of Jaemin’s arrogance.
“What makes you think I will protect you from your mother’s gaze?” The centaur asks. He does not need to raise his voice to be an intimidating force.
Jaemin meets his even tone, “Because the Fates have decreed it. Have they not?”
The centaur ponders this for a day. The next morning, he tells them, “She will not see you here.”
He throws the both of them into a heavy training regimen, though he makes it clear to Jeno that he will never be a brilliant warrior, but perhaps a good one. He drills them from dawn to dusk, and then some.
Amidst this, the heat of his words lingers between Jaemin and Jeno. She will not see you here.
The first time Jaemin kisses him, there's just this:
Jaemin, pausing just before they turn into the centaur’s cave. Jeno, stopping a few feet away, to take him in — ruffled from the hike, skin tan from the mountain sunlight, utterly breathtaking. Jaemin turning, his eyes softening, strong hands pulling Jeno in.
There’s just Jeno and Jaemin, as they’ve come to be. And Jeno’s been a little bit in love with Jaemin for a long time, but this is the point of no return. He falls, irrevocably, irreversibly, and prays to the gods that this happiness won’t cease.
But then war comes, and if there's one thing Jeno's father was ever right about, it was that war brings out the worst in the best men.
Byun Baekhyun is the king of Baekje. His wife has been stolen by a kingdom of the north, and he comes to the centaur’s mountaintop to ask for their help.
Jeno is commanded to act upon the oath his father foolishly made him pledge to the Byun family as a child. But Jaemin is not as easy to convince. It is Baekhyun's aide, Lee Taeyong, who speaks with him in private. When Jaemin returns, Jeno observes him carefully. He doesn’t look shaken, but simply in deep thought.
“Taeyong is a smart man,” he says, at last.
“Why do you say that?”
“You have to go, don’t you?” Jaemin asks. His tone is not accusatory, merely gentle, in the way Jeno has come to love.
“I must.”
Jaemin smiles, “He knows then, that I will, too.”
So they go, and they fight ten long, hard years. Jeno is not simple, like his mother was. He knows things are bound to change, but he’d never imagined they could change this much.
“He’s going to take your friend,” Jeno says, through clenched teeth. His eyes are burning with stubbornly unshed tears as he watches Jaemin pace the length of their shared tent. “The general will take her, Jaemin, and rape her. And you’re letting it happen.”
Jaemin seethes, “He insulted my honour. This is the only choice I have.”
“It is not.” Jeno wants to scream the words, but finds that his throat has closed up. “It is not. You’re letting it happen,” he repeats, and this time, it sounds like an admission.
It is not.
He takes Jaemin’s old armour, the armour of the man he loved. He takes the armour of the man he loved, borrows his courage and righteousness, and charges into battle. The centaur was right about many things, and one of them was this — Jeno makes a good warrior, but not a brilliant one.
Borrowing Jaemin’s name, he’s invincible and so are his fellow warriors.
But Jeno is not simple. He knows how it is bound to end.
He leads the first charge into the enemy palace, and their general intercepts him.
His last thought, Jaemin.
For the longest time, since they were eleven, Jeno wondered what it could have been that was taken away from Jaemin. It wasn’t until Jaemin told him about his mother’s hopes to make him a god, to defy the prophecy, that Jeno understood.
He watches from above, as Jaemin kills the general with his bare hands, as Jaemin watches the arrow as it flies towards him, as Jaemin falls to the ground with a hint of a smile on his lips.
And he understands. What had been taken away from Jaemin was his right to mortality, and the most honourable thing Jeno has done, in his life and death, was to give it back.